‘I’m not going to hide again’: Stakeknife report met with relief by victims’ families | Northern Ireland

When Freddie Scappaticci’s “mad crew” murdered suspected IRA informers, the families of the dead men entered a hell like no other.

The sight of a father, brother or son dumped on the side of the road, bound and hooded, covered with signs of torture and shot in the head, brought shock and pain.

But the murders also brought shame and fear, as the victims were seen as traitors, Judas within Northern Ireland’s republican community, and relatives were left to live with stigma and fear, lest they too would be labeled “rag pickers”.

The fact that Scapaticci secretly worked for the British security services and allowed his handlers to treat him as an executioner to protect his identity is one of the most horrific episodes of the Troubles.

Tuesday’s release of the police investigation known as Operation Kenova revealed much of that hidden history and offered victims’ families an opportunity to emerge from the shadows.

“I feel alive now and I won’t hide again,” said Claire Dignam, whose IRA husband Johnny was killed by his comrades in 1992. She was pregnant at the time and lived in fear for years, but not anymore, she said. “Shame, guilt, trying to fit in. My husband was Johnny Dignam, and I don’t care what was said about him in the past. My husband was innocent.”

Kevin Winters, a lawyer at KRW Law firm representing the victims’ families, said the relatives were encouraged by the revelation that Scappaticci was an agent codenamed Stakeknife and the role played by MI5 and other government agencies.

“They have been trapped in the back streets of their communities for too long,” he told a press conference in Belfast. “The stigma of being a liar or a snitch still lingers deep within Irish history. Following today’s report, I would like to think that the suffocating stigma has diminished. Not completely, but enough for many families to hold their heads up knowing that the truth, or a significant part of it, has come out to help change the narrative.”

Winters said the republican community did not wave banners in solidarity with the families of those killed by Scapatici’s internal security unit, but the families were able to look people in the eye. “The deafening silence regarding their situation has changed.”

Families welcomed this offer 160-page final reportThe result of nine years of investigation by dozens of detectives and more than £40 million, but it brought no catharsis.

Some expressed disappointment that Scappaticci, who died in 2023, was not named because of the government’s policy against naming informants. “If this important detail is missing, how can you say we have arrived at any truth?” Paul Wilson, whose father Thomas Emmanuel Wilson was killed by the IRA in 1987, said: “You can’t investigate the agent known as Stakeknife, spend all that money and then find out who he is, it seems like a goal from an open goal.”

Moira Todd said her family were “spit on” after her brother Eugene Simons was kidnapped by the IRA in 1981 on suspicion of being an informer. He was interrogated, killed and secretly buried; His family were left guessing about his fate until his body was found near a bog in County Louth in 1984.

“They knew he was dead. They didn’t tell us. My father hunted everywhere, my brother walked the streets of Dundalk, Dublin hoping to meet him, and all the while the authorities knew he wasn’t coming back, he was gone.”

Creating a full picture of the state’s complicity is more important than formal confirmation of Stataknife’s identity, Todd said. “Everyone knows who Scapaticci is. Let’s find out how he was allowed to do this.”

Jon Boutcher, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and former chief executive of Kenova, said many families had faced years of intimidation, isolation and humiliation at the hands of those who killed their loved ones.

“The suffering of these families has undoubtedly been compounded by the failures of the state, its failure to protect individuals, its failure to properly investigate their murders, and finally, its failure to provide survivors with the answers they are entitled to.” He praised those who attended the report’s launch: “The victims in this room represent courage, humility and dignity.”